


Once a Slave

by linndechir



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Clothed/Naked, Kneeling, M/M, Oral Sex, Sex Magic, Sexual Roleplay, Shame, Undercover as Master and Slave, mentions of Danarius/Fenris, unwanted arousal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-22 20:05:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14316168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir
Summary: While he and Hawke are undercover in Minrathous as a far-travelled Tevene mage and his most valuable slave, Fenris falls back into old habits.





	Once a Slave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kmfillz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmfillz/gifts).



> Dear recip, I was really excited to get to write about Hawke and Fenris undercover in Tevinter because that idea has been going around in my head for a while, and your prompts were excellent. I hope the result is to your liking!
> 
> General warning: Everything that happens in this fic is technically consensual, but Fenris isn't exactly in a position to say no and is having a lot of messy feelings about his past as Danarius's slave and about pretending to be Hawke's slave now, so if you're looking for happy fluffy roleplay, this fic is probably not what you want.

Tevinter parties hadn’t changed since he’d last been in the Imperium. There were many faces he didn’t recognise and the faces he did know were more than a decade older, and of course the fashion of the upper class had changed in that time. But at its core, it was the same. The same decadence of loaded banquet tables full of exotic fruits and delicious treats that Fenris had only ever been allowed to taste when his master had fed him. The same casual use of magic that would have been unthinkable anywhere else – golden mage lights floating through the large hall, painting ever-changing ornaments onto the walls. The same omnipresence of slaves, hurrying around in silence to refill glasses and carry plates, largely ignored if they were lucky, but oftentimes pulled into a lap or groped in passing or made to crouch at a mage’s feet like a dog.

Tension radiated from his master, one step ahead of him. It was no cause for concern – Fenris doubted anyone else would notice, would take the straight posture and the firm set of his jaw as anything other than pride and determination. His robes were made of heavy black velvet inwrought with gleaming scarlet threads, form-fitting as the current fashion dictated and only reaching down to his knees to show off well-muscled calves in the finest kid skin boots. That too had not changed – Tevinter mages had always been vain, eager to show off their bodies almost as much as their power.

Fenris allowed himself a glance at his face: the beard was more neatly cropped than he usually bothered with, his hair was combed and laid carefully. His face looked almost naked without the dark red smear across his nose. Instead his eyes were meticulously lined with kohl Fenris had applied earlier, emphasising the cold, haughty expression in them. Objectively he might not have looked all that different, and yet he didn’t look like himself. He could appear arrogant at times, dismissive, but never with that unthinking certainty to be obeyed that was the mark of a noble upbringing.

They stopped by the side of the hall – or rather his master stopped, and Fenris followed suit. Hawke, he reminded himself. It was easier to be what he had to be if he thought of him as his master, if he remembered that the consequences of failure would be as deadly for both of them as disobeying Danarius had been. But underneath the robes, underneath that sneer he wore like an Orlesian mask, it was still Hawke. _His_ Hawke. The only man he trusted enough to follow him into the heart of the Imperium. It was good to remember that, too.

“Do you see him?” Hawke asked under his breath while surveying the room like a man looking for the most interesting – or profitable – company. Fenris had taught him that, too: to school his features completely, to practise that simultaneous expression of bored disinterest and shrewd alertness. _Know everything and pretend to care about none of it._ Danarius had said that to Hadriana once, when she’d only just become his apprentice. Fenris had told Hawke the same.

“No,” Fenris said after a moment. It would have been too easy if they could have just kept an eye on their target for the rest of the night and snatched him the moment he left. Nothing was ever that easy, certainly not when dealing with the man who seemed to have his fingers in every slave-hunting operation south of the Imperium’s border. Killing him would change nothing – slavers were like weeds in Tevinter, they’d prosper for as long as there was demand for elven and human flesh, and even Hawke couldn’t kill them all. But they’d both decided it would be damned satisfying to kill this one and rip his operations to pieces. It was better than doing nothing – for Hawke at least. Doing nothing tended to make him maudlin and too quiet, as Fenris remembered from the weeks right after Kirkwall. He didn't want to see him like that again.

“We’ll have to mingle then,” Hawke said. He’d slipped into the right accent again: clipped consonants and slightly nasal vowels, and sounding unimpressed came easy to him. It wasn’t a perfect Minrathous accent, he hadn’t been able to master that in time. But it sounded reasonably Tevene and just foreign enough for a man who had travelled for most of his life. Charmingly exotic rather than uncivilised.

So they mingled. Fenris stayed a step behind his master, always attentive the way a bodyguard should be, and never meeting a mage’s eyes, like a slave should. It was so easy to slip back into old habits. Don’t look at your betters. Don’t look at the other slaves either, you’ll get one or both of you in trouble. Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. Don’t sneer, don’t smile, don’t move a single muscle unless you’re ordered to. Hear everything and pretend you hear nothing. Slaves had their own lessons to learn, and Fenris had internalised them far more than Hawke ever could those of an Altus.

So he kept quiet while a room full of mages gaped at him and pestered his master with questions about how he’d got his hands on something as valuable as Fenris – many of them remembered Danarius’s pet project, as his old master had always been eager to show him off. Fenris tried not to recognise any of them, especially not the ones Danarius had borrowed him to. Tried not to notice the hungry, greedy looks that still, always left him unsure if they wanted to fuck him or experiment on him. Likely both. 

He didn’t let himself dwell on it. Rage wouldn’t serve him here. Rage was the prerogative of free men; it only got slaves killed.

He kept quiet while Lord Hastus Aquila – originally from Marothius, born to an old but politically long irrelevant family, who’d spent most of his life travelling the barbaric South to find artefacts the Imperium had left behind long ago – explained that he’d caught Fenris near Kirkwall after Magister Danarius’s _unfortunate_ demise.

“He was like a wild dog when I found him,” his master said with a harshness in his voice that would have made Fenris shiver if he’d allowed his muscles to move. They weren’t his to move, not now. “But I reined him in easily enough. Danarius clearly didn’t know how to handle a wolf. Maybe he got soft in his old age.”

Laughter all around – nobody owed allegiance to a dead man with no heirs, not even those who had once called him friend – and soon everyone shared stories of disobedient slaves, the smallest missteps distorted through the angry eyes of unforgiving masters. His own master’s laughter was like a knife between Fenris’s ribs – it sounded sharper than at home, than Hawke’s honest, bellowing laugh. Not that he laughed very much since they’d had to leave Kirkwall.

“Come here, my pet,” he ordered. Fenris stepped forward without thinking about it, bowed his head when Hawke raised his hand and gracefully sank to his knees before that hand even touched the back of his neck. There was no need to force him to his knees – “like that unruly Qunari Corinius bought, do you remember?”, a young woman Fenris didn’t recognise said and launched into a longer story that involved a great deal of beatings. But Fenris was well-behaved. Well-trained. An escaped dog who’d turned on his old master, brought to heel again by one strong enough to handle him.

“Can’t I be a nice master?” Hawke had asked him, sitting at a tiny table in a tavern near the border while Fenris explained the intricacies of Tevene table etiquette to him. “There must be nice masters.”

Fenris had grudgingly acknowledged that there were masters who at least refrained from wanton cruelty towards their slaves, and even some who liked to spoil their favourite slaves with treats and kindness like they’d pamper a beloved dog. It was an eccentricity a powerful man could afford, to be kind to his slaves. It wasn’t an eccentricity _Hawke_ would be able to afford.

“I’m worth a fortune in Tevinter,” Fenris had growled at him, angry in that very specific way only Hawke could make him angry, because he _cared_ about Hawke so much that the thought of losing him was worse than death. “Enough to assassinate another mage who has no political connections. If you appear weak, Hawke, they will take me from you.”

He left it unspoken that, in Tevinter, they could. That no fight Fenris could put up would change that. One thing Tevinter’s warring ruling class agreed upon was that no rebellious slave should be shown mercy.

Hawke had joked about the idea of anyone managing to kill him, of course, and gone back to mixing up various knives and forks, but his eyes had hardened in that cold way they only ever did when he was preparing to kill his way through an army to defend what was his. And Fenris, whatever else he was, was Hawke’s. In fact, he was the last person Hawke had truly left in this world. 

And so Master Aquila was not a nice man. He laughed at stories that Fenris knew sickened him to the core, and he made Fenris kneel at his feet, and he dug his fingers into Fenris’s chin to show off the lyrium lines on his throat when someone asked about them. He casually mentioned fights with bandits and southern Templars and Nevarran mages on his travels, just to make sure everyone knew he was more than capable of defending his property. 

It had been a long time since Fenris had been property. _I am not a slave_ , he reminded himself as his eyes slid off a slim elf boy with a carefully blank look on his face who was being dragged out of the main hall by one of the guests, one hand already under the boy’s clothes. 

Hawke picked a grape from a plate proffered by yet another slave – without looking at the girl; it had taken Fenris days to get that through his skull – and after a moment’s hesitation he fed it to Fenris. Dismissively, like you’d throw a morsel under the table for a pet. Fenris took it from his fingers with careful lips. One time his teeth had brushed Danarius’s hand in a situation just like this. He’d spent the rest of that evening screaming while Danarius illustrated how useful the lyrium lines were for punishment.

The mages had moved on from exhilarating topics like unruly slaves and exciting journeys to uncivilised lands to practical magic – how to make this spell last longer, that one burn hotter, this one more powerful. For the first time that night, Fenris detected genuine interest in his – in Hawke’s voice. How foreign this must have seemed to him, who’d spent so much of his life hiding, running, lying about what he was. The richest, most powerful members of society casually discussing something that could have ruined Hawke’s life in the South, at least before the title of Champion had bought him safety. 

Fenris had little sympathy for the plight of mages, as Hawke’s pet abomination always put it, but he had sympathy for Hawke. Hawke who had a will like thrice-folded steel, Hawke who’d so often used his magic to help others, Hawke who didn’t belong in one of those southern mage prisons. Hawke deserved his freedom as much as Fenris ever had.

 _I am not a slave_ , but what difference did it make? Hawke’s fingers ran through his hair, petting him idly while he chatted about fireballs. As if he’d forgotten Fenris was there. As if he’d forgotten why _they_ were here. As long as they were in Tevinter, Hawke did own him – not metaphorically, not just his heart, but him. If Hawke decided to stay – in a place that respected him for what he was rather than in spite of it – Fenris wouldn’t be able to stop him. He wouldn’t be able to leave. He would be a slave again, and this time he would have forged his chains himself.

He continued to keep an eye on the room, but allowed himself to lean his temple against Hawke’s thigh. Solid, warm. Powerful. His master laughed the sharp, cold laugh of a man who’d never cared about anything but himself, and he sat just the way Danarius used to sit at these parties, the way Fenris had taught him to sit. He touched Fenris with Danarius’s gestures and spoke to him in Danarius’s words. Fenris had moulded _Master Aquila_ after the master he’d known best, given him all the mannerisms that had haunted him his whole life. It should have filled him with dread to see Hawke like this. 

But when his master’s fingers slipped underneath the edge of his armour, down between Fenris’s shoulder blades to touch soft, vulnerable skin, Fenris all but melted into his touch. He had to bite his lip to stay quiet when Hawke’s boot brushed against his thigh and it took him a horrified moment to realise why there was heat surging through him just then. 

He didn’t show it – his hands were on his thighs, shielding him a little, and fortunately for him nobody was paying him any mind right now, not even Hawke himself. He knew his expression wouldn’t have given anything away. 

But it was humiliating enough that _he_ knew. 

_Once you had affection for me, my little wolf_ , whispered a voice from his memories, a voice he’d done his damnedest to forget, only to give it now to the man he loved more than life itself. 

It hadn’t been affection, he knew that now. But back when he’d been Danarius’s pet, he hadn’t known the difference. He’d thought he’d learnt.

*

The door closed behind them with a soft click that had a certain finality to it and promised peace and quiet at least until the next morning. Their target hadn’t shown up all night, and eventually they’d given up and gone back to the inn. They’d have to stay a bit longer in town then. A few more days shouldn’t make a difference, but it was so easy – frighteningly easy – to get used to this.

Fenris had to make an effort to look up and meet Hawke’s eyes. A slave’s habits were not something one could take off as easily as a disguise. A part of him, one he’d spent years struggling against, rebelled at the idea of looking into his master’s eyes. A terrified voice that started somewhere in his spine warned him that he’d be punished terribly for overstepping like this.

Hawke’s eyes were wide and tired and hard all at the same time, as if he was stumbling around in his own head between who he was under layers of deception and who he’d been playing for long enough that Fenris was almost getting used to him. The voice and the beard and the clothes, it was all so wrong on Hawke, and yet in its essence so very, very familiar.

The worst part was that it suited Hawke. The neat beard showed off his jawline, the kohl made his eyes gleam brighter. The form-fitting robes emphasised the breadth of his shoulders as much as his armour ever had. _Mens sana in corpore sano_ – Tevinter appreciated physical perfection in a mage even as it derided any skill that wasn’t either magical or intellectual. In some ways Hawke fit right in.

It was clear that he was trying to shake off Master Aquila like a dog shaking the rain out of its fur, but Fenris wasn’t ready for that yet. After another day with his head bowed, his eyes downcast, barely uttering a word beyond “yes, master”, the idea of freedom was disorienting. He wasn’t sure how to be himself again yet, felt overwhelmed by the prospect of Hawke’s concern, his gentleness, his caring. Slaves weren’t cared for, not like this. 

_I am not a slave_ , he told himself once more, but the words rang hollow in his own mind. Hawke could stay here if he chose. Hawke could own him here, if he chose. Hawke could draw this out for weeks and months and Fenris would let him, until the thought of leaving wouldn’t occur to him anymore. Hawke had made him his as completely as Danarius ever had, without even meaning to.

With an annoyed growl Fenris locked his thoughts into a quiet corner of his mind and quickly stepped towards Hawke, into his personal space, more aggressively than he would have dared all day. Before Hawke could open his mouth ( _are you all right? was it too much? I’m sorry_ ) Fenris whispered into the small space between them, “We could be watched.”

It wasn’t impossible. Unlikely – they were doing well, they had no reason to assume that their cover was compromised, that anyone suspected them of not being what they claimed to be – but not impossible. In Tevinter paranoia was often a prerequisite for survival.

“Watched, huh? We’ve never tried that,” Hawke replied quietly, a sliver of his usual innuendo mixing with that condescending tone that wasn’t Hawke at all. Hawke’s voice used by someone else. But he’d taken care to be quiet, and he glanced around uncertainly. In a strange way, it was almost as if Fenris took the lead more often now as his slave than he had as a free man in Kirkwall. Or maybe he simply wanted to tell himself that in a desperate attempt to feel like his freedom was still more than just a word.

“Allow me, master, please,” Fenris said more loudly. His voice too sounded foreign to him these days – carefully bland, controlled, even. He didn’t touch Hawke without permission, waited until several conflicting emotions had flashed through those brown eyes (such a common colour, Fenris thought, common and so very familiar – he hadn’t met many Altus mages whose eyes weren’t green or blue or the brightest grey, amber sometimes or even yellow, but rarely brown) and Hawke nodded his assent. 

“Go on.” He made a magnanimous hand gesture that was all Danarius, arrogant and a little impatient, and then he held still while Fenris undid the top layer of his robes, carefully opening countless straps and buckles before he put them aside. They were so close they breathed each other’s air, and Fenris’s nerves tingled with something that was half uncertainty and half desire and entirely terrifying. He _wanted_. Not merely to please Hawke, no, but he wanted for himself. Serving Danarius hadn’t been like this – the person Fenris had been back then, if he’d been a person at all, hadn’t _known_ how to want anything for himself.

He sank to his knees in a fluid motion that felt as natural as standing, didn’t raise his eyes to check if Hawke was looking at him, if he was disgusted with the servility that came back to Fenris so easily, as if his freedom had been an act and this was the real him. His fingertips brushed over the fine leather of Hawke’s boots, and then after a moment Hawke raised his foot, hesitated again before he put it on Fenris’s knee.

“Take them off,” he ordered. His voice was less sure than it had been in public, but it still strung that same chord in Fenris’s mind that had been humming for days, every time Hawke’s hand touched the back of his neck, every time he waved him aside with nary a thought, every time he called him his pet. Why had Fenris told him to call him that? Of all the words he could have chosen, why this one?

More buckles were opened before he pulled the boot off Hawke’s foot. He left the stocking on for now – no Tevinter mage would touch the ground with bare feet. Bare feet were for elves, for slaves. A mage’s feet were covered by silk and finest leather, by comfortable satin slippers at home, bare only under smooth sheets or in hot baths or a body slave’s hands. The second boot followed, and this time Hawke rested his hand on Fenris’s head, maybe for balance, or maybe to touch what was his. Strong fingers in his hair, holding on, then pulling just a little bit when Fenris took too long. The sensation sent sparks through his body, a far less painful version of magic thrumming through the lyrium under his skin. There was nothing ambiguous anymore about the heat spreading through him. He was hard. Shamefully, unbearably hard. Aroused by this man who was barely even Hawke, this nightmare created from Fenris’s worst memories that wore Hawke’s body like a demon would. And Fenris wanted to serve him so badly he could have begged for it.

Hawke’s fingers stroked his hair almost contemplatively. Fenris had seen him pet his dog like that – an absent-minded, repetitive motion that betrayed his indecision. Maybe he had noticed that Fenris’s desire had been growing all night. Maybe he was looking for a kind way to tell Fenris that he didn’t want him like this. Hawke had been the first mage who’d treated him like a person rather than a slave. Surely he would be disappointed in him now.

His calloused fingers – a manicure or two hadn’t removed all traces from the life he’d lived – slid down over Fenris’s cheek to his chin and cupped it firmly. His touch was strong and almost a little forceful, but he wouldn’t have needed to do more than hint at it to get Fenris to raise his head obediently. 

While he was still trying to make himself look into Hawke’s eyes, he saw something else – the noticeable, undeniable bulge in the tight, ornate fabric of his breeches. Hawke was far from a small man, much larger than Danarius had been, larger than most men Danarius had borrowed him to as a favour; there was no mistaking that he was aroused. That he wanted Fenris, like this, kneeling, obedient. Fenris would have despised any other man for it.

When he glanced up at Hawke’s face, he saw the guilt there, the conflict. _I could stop this_ , he told himself even as he knew that it didn’t matter. He didn’t want to stop this. He was Hawke’s, mind and body, and he’d made it a matter of pride not to deny himself anything with Hawke ever again.

“How may I serve you, master?” he asked, quietly, but loud enough that Hawke wouldn’t have to strain to hear him. 

“Do I have to spell it out for you?” Hawke asked. The condescension sounded convincing enough, but he was offering him a way to back out, which he then masked easily when he added, “I would have thought I had trained you better than that.”

Again that thrumming surged through Fenris and for a moment his mouth was so dry he couldn’t speak.

“Of course, master,” he said. “I must beg your forgiveness.”

He reached for Hawke’s breeches, but Hawke’s hand stopped him. It wasn’t a slap – Fenris had been hit countless times in his life, and he’d seen Hawke hit more than enough people. But his hand came down on Fenris’s cheek with a bit more force than expected, and then his thumb pressed against Fenris’s jaw.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

It was an old game, a familiar game they’d never played. Unclear orders, vague questions to which he had to guess the answer or be punished. Terror gripped at the edges of his conscience. 

But Hawke didn’t know this particular game.

“You’re too dressed for this, my Fenris,” he explained before Fenris had time to decide what to do. The _my_ coursed through him like too much wine, like an aphrodisiac. Danarius had given him one, just one time, to amuse himself watching Fenris struggle to maintain his composure while his cock was desperately straining for attention.

“Apologies, master.” He didn’t offer an explanation. Making excuses only got slaves punished. His hands moved quickly to undo the buckles of his armour and peel the fabric beneath from his skin. It had been years since he’d undressed on his knees. It was still so easy.

The wooden floor was warm and smooth under his bare knees when he settled in his previous position, his head bowed, Hawke’s fingers returning into his hair. Stroking it, then coming to rest on his neck. They’d decided against a collar and a leash. Some masters leashed their slaves just for fun – Danarius certainly had on a few memorable occasions – but many mages regarded it as a sign of an ill-behaved slave and a weak master. _Good_ slaves obeyed without restraints.

“That’s better,” Hawke said. His fingertips brushed over the lines on the back of Fenris’s neck. There was no magic in his touch, but it didn’t matter. There could be magic at any moment. That thought was more powerful than any leash. “So pretty,” Hawke sighed after a moment. Compliments were not something they did. Fenris didn’t like them most of the time, precisely because they made him feel like this. Like a thing. A valuable object to be admired and used.

“Go on then.” His tone was pure command, as if Hawke had settled back into his role. He’d been getting good at this – he rarely ever slouched now when he sat down and he’d found an almost disturbingly smooth way to combine his laconic jokes with an Altus’s arrogant tone.

It was impossible not to let his fingers brush over Hawke’s bulge while he undid the intricate lacing of his breeches (Hawke had complained so much about complicated Tevinter fashion when they’d had his robes made – “I’m going to _need_ a slave’s help to take a piss while wearing this!” – it seemed to have been a long time ago). When Fenris pulled his cock from the silk underwear, Hawke was already fully hard, and the way he twitched lightly hinted at a certain oversensitivity that made Fenris think it wasn’t the first time today. He wondered when it had been – when Fenris had knelt at his feet at the party? When Hawke had run his fingers over the lines on his arm to show him off to another mage? Had he noticed how comfortable Fenris had been following him, and that had been it?

Under the perfumed soaps and oils Fenris had insisted on, Hawke barely even smelt like himself, but his smell here was intimately familiar. It smelt just like Hawke always did, like days spent in his bed in Kirkwall before everything had gone to the Void, like campsite bedrolls and curling around each other for warmth. It smelt like a life that belonged to someone else than a kneeling slave.

But Fenris didn’t take him into his mouth right away – Hawke was usually impatient in bed, at least for the first round, and frequently complained if Fenris teased him too much. But this wasn’t Hawke, and a mage of Lord Aquila’s status would expect more from his precious body slave than the quick and sloppy services of a dockside whore. 

He would take his time then. If Hawke objected, after all, he could simply demand anything he pleased. And whether he could or not, Fenris knew he would not stop him.

After inching closer to Hawke on his knees, Fenris licked slowly over the underside of Hawke’s cock, swirled his tongue around the head before he repeated the motion, not quite in the same spot this time. It was slow, and thorough, building up the pressure until the grip in his hair became painful. Danarius had been older than Hawke, he’d sometimes needed a little while to be ready. Hawke had been hard from the start, and Fenris so rarely had an opportunity to use all his skills for this. Most of the time he didn’t want to. Sometimes, now, there was a certain dark pleasure in using how Danarius had trained him to pleasure the man who’d helped kill him.

“Having fun, my pet?” Hawke gasped, fingers twitching against Fenris’s scalp. Somewhere in the fog of his thoughts Fenris noticed with pride that Hawke’s accent hadn’t slipped. “Of course you are. Maybe I’ll allow you to have a reward after this. If you stop being fussy.”

There was a brief brush of silk – the stocking, Fenris realised belatedly – against Fenris’s own cock and he had to bite back a humiliated whimper. At least the boots were gone, so Hawke couldn’t have Fenris rub himself against those. 

“Thank you, master,” he only said. He knew Hawke too well, the impatient little sound he made when Fenris kissed the tip of his cock, the way he pulled on Fenris’s hair. But where Hawke would have asked for more, begged with the nonchalance of a man who’d never truly had to beg for anything in his life, Master Aquila demanded. He yanked Fenris closer by his hair, and Fenris opened his mouth with unquestioning obedience, taking him in so easily. 

No, not easily. Hawke’s cock was thick, filled up his mouth and pushed against the back of his throat, and Fenris had to concentrate to keep his breathing even, to swallow around him and take him all the way in, but it felt natural. He’d clasped his hands behind his back to make sure he wouldn’t be tempted to touch – neither Hawke nor himself. He couldn’t have said which was harder to resist at the moment. His own cock was straining against his stomach, the tip already wet, but Hawke was right there in front of him. Those thick, fuzzy thighs that were clamped so often around Fenris’s hips while Fenris fucked him. It seemed almost unthinkable now. He choked a little on something almost like laughter when he tried to imagine Danarius ever asking that of him.

It must have felt good because Hawke moaned, deep and uninhibited, his hips jerking forward in regular but forceful thrusts. He wasn’t holding back, Fenris realised – Hawke who tended to be so careful with him, sometimes unnecessarily so. Fenris didn’t have to fake his own muffled moans while Hawke fucked his mouth, didn’t have to pretend he was enjoying it, didn’t have to make himself strain to keep Hawke’s cock in his mouth when he pulled it out until only the head was resting between Fenris’s lips. He tasted Hawke right on the tip of his tongue when he came, a familiar taste that had long stopped bothering him. He even savoured it for a moment before he swallowed down every drop. Hawke usually liked it messy – he liked coming on Fenris’s skin, he liked licking his come off Fenris’s chest or his arse or his thighs. Master Aquila however would expect his slave not to spill anything.

Seconds later Fenris allowed himself a tentative glance upwards. He’d always thought there was something unfairly attractive about Hawke fully dressed with his cock out, and somehow the expensive, elegant robes only enhanced that effect. He must have touched his face at some point because the kohl around his eyes had smeared down over his cheek. Hawke being Hawke, he made it look like it was on purpose.

Fenris couldn’t bring himself to tuck him back in, and after all he hadn’t been told to. Instead he remained motionless on his knees, hands still behind his back, and when Hawke made a small step backwards, Fenris could feel the way he was staring at Fenris’s cock.

“You’ve definitely earned a reward, as good as you’ve been.”

His own desire was like a slap across the face. He didn’t want to want this, not like this. He didn’t want Hawke to _see_ that all it took were a few orders in the right voice and Fenris’s mind folded obediently into its old self, a broken slave whose rebellion had meant nothing because he was still a slave where it mattered. A free man wouldn’t be aroused by this. Hawke wouldn’t have been aroused by being paraded around like a thing.

“You’re very generous, master, but that is not necessary. I can –”

“It _is_ necessary,” Hawke interrupted him, “because I want to. Up on the bed with you.”

Once again Fenris’s limbs obeyed automatically. He rose to his feet, still looking down, and went over to the broad bed. Hawke gestured briefly to indicate how he wanted him and Fenris stretched out on his back. Hawke had seen him undressed countless times before. Fenris shouldn’t have felt so exposed under his gaze.

Hawke still hadn’t bothered to tuck himself back in when he sat down on the edge of the bed, eyes roaming over Fenris’s body before he started touching. The lightest brush of fingertips on Fenris’s knee that slowly followed the lyrium lines up to his groin. Once those marks had been a constant source of pain. Without Danarius using them to punish him, they had healed more neatly over the years, but sometimes Fenris could still feel that shadow of agony underneath his skin. He anticipated it now, with Hawke more intent on the lines than he usually allowed himself to be. 

And suddenly there was a wisp of magic streaming from his master’s fingertips. Fenris felt the pain before it hit him, and needed a few seconds to realise that it only existed in his imagination. All that emanated from Hawke’s hand was a touch of healing power, which in absence of actual wounds only radiated a certain warm, pleasant sensation. When it hit the lyrium, it amplified until Fenris could feel it vibrating in his bones.

No training in the world could have made him hold still. But as his hands twitched – whether to brace himself or to touch Hawke or to push him, he couldn’t have said – a second spell hit him, more resolutely this time, an invisible force that pushed him back down onto the bed. It wasn’t that he was paralysed – he could move his hands, wriggle his toes, squirm to his heart’s content, but he couldn’t rise up from the bed. A very mild version of one of Hawke’s favourite spells, he realised belatedly. Hawke called it the Maker's Fist and wiggled his eyebrows when he did. Even now the thought filled Fenris with fondness. 

“Sometimes you don’t know what’s good for you, Fenris.” Hawke's voice was soft now. Not too gentle, not here (“I will not lose you because you refuse to appear ruthless for a few weeks, Hawke” – that Fenris, weeks ago, had been allowed to rage, and his anger had been listened to), but still soft enough to soothe the instinctive panic that raced through Fenris’s veins. They didn’t use magic in bed. They never had, and Hawke hadn’t asked again since the first time he had brought it up. The lyrium in his body was singing, not in pain, but in almost unbearable pleasure that seemed to hit every single nerve ending.

Fenris opened his eyes again and saw Hawke looking down at his cock, smiling – checking, maybe, if Fenris was still enjoying this, or had that stopped mattering to him? Was he already getting used to Fenris doing as he was told without argument and complaint? Power was a seductive thing, even for a man as strong-willed as Hawke. 

But none of that fear, none of the tension in his mind that kept expecting the pleasure to turn into agony, stopped Fenris from wanting this, from straining against the spell’s restraints for more. 

“Haw-,” he gasped and only turned it into a moan at the last moment. Even that trespass didn’t earn him any pain. Fenris curled his fingers into the soft bedsheets, pleasure coursing through him when Hawke’s fingertips slid over his stomach. There was a faint blue glow emanating from them, mirrored in the lyrium on Fenris’s body. They rarely glowed without either him or someone else being in pain.

 _Master, please_ , his mind begged, but Fenris bit down on his bottom lip so Hawke would never hear those words at least. But his body begged even as his voice resisted, squirming and aching for more until his master’s fingers finally touched his cock. Just a whisper of a caress as well, retracing the lines Danarius had etched into his most sensitive flesh for no other reason than because it had pleased him. Hawke’s magic felt nothing like Danarius’s – it was blunt and forceful most of the time, a battlemage’s raw power rather than a magister’s refinement, but he could tune it down to this, this almost nothingness that was too much to bear.

“May I –” Fenris asked. Although he couldn’t form a clear thought anymore, his mind still knew a slave’s place, a slave’s rules. But the words “Of course” had barely even left his master’s lips before Fenris came, digging his teeth into his lip and still failing to remain quiet as untainted pleasure washed through him. It left him as dizzy as the most agonising pain, and yet so very calm underneath the waves of joy Hawke had sent crushing over him.

When he looked up – how long had he lain there? a slave wasn’t allowed to linger for too long, to indulge himself when his pleasure had only been for his master’s amusement – Hawke was looking down at him. Hawke, not Master Aquila. The look in his eyes, concealed from any spying eyes there might be by the hair that fell into his face, was warm and concerned. And a little smug. 

Fenris shifted slowly. He still felt hot from head to toe, a little hazy the way he so often did after Hawke made him come, but otherwise no different. Certainly not in pain, not even when he sat up. 

“Thank you, master,” his parched throat managed. If someone was watching, that was what Fenris would have been expected to say. His nerves were still tingling, and his body was still tense as if it kept waiting for pain that wasn’t there. But the words were more than just a slave’s obedience, they were heartfelt. Trust Hawke to make _magic_ feel good. 

“I always wanted to do that,” Hawke said quietly. He kept himself from grinning, but Fenris knew that expression in his eyes too well. So pleased with himself. He leant in closer, ostensively to get a better look at the lyrium lines on Fenris’s shoulder while idly petting them, his voice lowered to a barely audible whisper.

“We’re not being watched, are we?” he mumbled.

He could lie. Fenris knew he could lie. Even slaves lied to their masters – Fenris had rarely got away with it, but he knew that others did it all the time. But he chose not to lie to Hawke.

“Probably not,” he said just as quietly. Hawke’s hand squeezed his shoulder and he let out a thoughtful hum.

“Clean yourself up,” he said more loudly. “Then help me undress. I’m tired.”

Fenris wiped his mouth with the back of his hand to hide the flicker of a smile he caught himself at.

“Yes, master.”

* 

Two weeks later they stood on the deck of a ship that had set sail from Carastes towards the Free Marches. The first ship had taken them from Minrathous to Carastes, where they’d laid a false trail or two before boarding the ship home. It hadn’t seemed like anyone was following them, but neither of them was too keen on fighting on a ship. Hawke had a tendency to set things on fire.

Hawke was wearing brown leather now, simple, nondescript traveller’s clothes. Decidedly unfashionable by Tevinter standards. He still had some badly washed off kohl smudged around his eyes and his beard hadn’t quite grown in again yet, but at least the red kaddis was back on his nose. His dog, sitting next to them on the swaying deck, seemed reassured by that as well. 

Fenris kept the hood of his cloak pulled low. Until they were out of the Imperium for good, he preferred to try and stay inconspicuous. They watched silently as Carastes disappeared in the distance, both of them leaning on the railing.

“So, Tevinter,” Hawke said when the port was barely more than a few dots on the horizon. “Not so bad after all. I liked the little skewers with the cheese and the pink fruits.”

Fenris let out a snort that barely disguised his laugh. The accent had already disappeared halfway to Carastes, as had Hawke’s ability to stay serious for more than half a conversation. 

“You should have bought some of those pink fruits then. They keep a while,” Fenris said. He’d expected it to be harder to be himself again, to speak his mind, to tease Hawke and laugh at his jokes. But he’d slipped right back into that as quickly as he’d slipped into a slave’s habits when they had arrived. He didn’t know what that said about him. He just knew that they were leaving, and for all the conversations about magic and all his interest in the architecture and artefacts he’d seen in the Imperium, Hawke didn’t seem particularly sad about that.

“And you didn’t think to mention that back in port? Anders was right, you really do make a terrible slave.” 

Hawke gently bumped his shoulder against Fenris’s. He was looking at him now, a serious frown creeping onto his face. Fenris had seen the question in Hawke’s eyes since that first night they had spent like that, master and slave, not dropping their disguises once the door had been closed. Hawke didn’t want to ask it, and Fenris didn’t want to talk about it. At least not yet.

“I’m fine, Hawke. It was a few weeks. It was nothing compared to the years I spent as an actual slave.”

Something about his tone kept Hawke from arguing for once. Hawke must have known it wasn’t the whole truth – he knew Fenris too well not to notice. Again they were quiet, until there was nothing around them but the ocean. Hawke’s hand had dropped to scratch his dog’s head. Absent-mindedly, while he was thinking.

“You know what the worst part of it was?” Fenris said into the sound of the waves sloshing against the hull. “Not the way they looked at me, or the way you talked to me. Not seeing all those slaves who’d never know freedom.”

Hawke flinched next to him. Fenris had no doubt that that had been the worst part for _him_. Closing his eyes and looking away and leaving. One time he had suggested buying a few slaves and then freeing them when they were home – surely nobody would wonder about that. Fenris had talked him out of it. He wasn’t going to risk losing Hawke by attracting any unnecessary attention, even if it had broken something in Hawke to do nothing. He’d never been good at accepting when he was powerless.

“The worst part was that you made me think it wouldn’t be so bad to live like that if I were yours.” The words tasted like ashes in Fenris’s mouth. It had been over a decade since he’d run from Danarius and a part of him was still a slave. Still waiting for a master. Still so ready to submit and obey and be content with his shackles. He’d merely been lucky that Hawke didn’t want to be anyone’s master.

“I’ll keep that in mind if I ever miss the little pink fruits so much I just have to move to Tevinter for them.” The words sounded flat in the wind, but there was no judgement in Hawke’s eyes when he looked at Fenris. There never had been. Fenris leant against him and sighed quietly when Hawke wrapped his arm around his shoulders to pull him closer. 

“Besides, I took the chest with all those robes along,” Hawke added after a moment. “Just in case you ever miss that bastard Aquila.”


End file.
